Way Too Many Nukes

How many nuclear weapons are therein the hands of leaders around theworld? The precise number is unknown.However, analysts believethere are more than 19K nukes, total. Russia leads the pack with approximately10K warheads, while the United States has 8K. But theU.S. has more active warheads —2,150 to be specific—compared to Russia’s 1,800.

Israel, France, China and England each have between200 and 600 nukes. India and its enemy, Pakistan,are near the 100 mark. North Korea still lingers in the minor league category with an arsenalestimated to be less than 50.

Despite a geopolitical reluctance to move away from being a nuclear planet, there has been progress.Taiwan, Argentina, South Korea and Brazilhave all foregone nuclear aspirations. Libya’s recently assassinated leader Muammar Qaddafi alsoturned his back on nukes in 2003. Considering his fate at the hands of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces, Qaddafi probablywished, right before he was murdered, that he hadrethought that decision.

Some other countries—Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan—forfeited (either by choice or force)small quantities of nuclear weapons that they haddeveloped or inherited, as was the case with otherformer Soviet bloc satellites, as well as SouthAfrica and Iraq.

On October 4 AMERICAN FREE PRESS contacted Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association(ACA), to determine where mankind stands in terms of our nuclear dangers. Founded in 1971, ACA is a watchdog for nuclear arms control andrelated national security issues.

“The threat of a ‘bolt from the blue’ strike is much lower now than it was in 1962 during theCuban Missile Crisis,” Kimball told AFP. “Plus, the United States and Russia aren’t enemies as they once were. Still, both sides possess weapons andnuclear fighting plans that posit hundreds of targets in each country. So today, the latent risks remainvery real.”

Kimball continued: “Since more nuclear materialsexist in the world today, more countries couldbuild ‘the bomb’ if they so desired. The longerthere are stockpiles of nuclear materials, it’s more probable that an insider could pilfer and sell them.In this context, the relative risks may be higher than ever before.”

When asked about the possibility of rogue entitiesdetonating a “suitcase bomb” somewhere inAmerica, Kimball said: “Intelligence agencies payextremely close attention to certain places like Pakistan. But no amount of knowledge can compensatefor how vulnerable Pakistan’s nuclear assets and infrastructure are to insider threats.”

Similarly, Kimball added: “The U.S. is not omnipotent.There are some problems that can’t beaddressed from the outside. We’re not able to flyin Special Forces at the drop of a hat to every problem area.”

India-Pakistan: World’s Worst Nuclear Hot Spot

By Victor Thorn

Could the world spiral into a nuclear nightmare because of fights over water? AsIndia insists on pushing forward with itsconstruction of hydroelectric dams that will prevent rivers from flowing into Pakistan, tensionscontinue to escalate.

On December 8, 2011, the Pakistani newspaper Nawa-e Waqtcommented on the inevitability of aconflict.

“India should be forcibly prevented from constructing these dams,” editorialized Nawa-e Waqt.“If it fails to constrain itself, we should not hesitatein launching nuclear war, because there is no solution except this.”

Bashir Ahmad, a geologist at the center of this storm in Kashmir, views the situation in dire terms,especially if India is able to limit the amount of water its neighbor receives during growing seasons.“They will switch the Indus [River] off tomake Pakistan solely dependent on India,” saidAhmad. “It’s going to be a water bomb.”

War-gamers have plotted the unthinkable and its effects on our planet. The environmental groupNatural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) envisionedwhat would happen if two dozen ground-basednukes were detonated in major cities.

A decade ago in a June 5, 2002 report, the NRDC calculated, “22.1M people in India and Pakistanwould be exposed to lethal radiation doses. Another 8M would receive [lower] doses,causing severe radiation sickness and potentiallydeath. . . . As many as 30M people would be threatened by fallout from the attack.”

An April 25 column by Neha Malik of TopNews Network carried an even grimmeroutlook: “A nuclear war between India andPakistan, even if it is limited in nature, would result in major climate disruptions and ultimately,global famine.”

Dr. Ira Helfand, who authored a study for International Physicians for the Prevention of NuclearWar, predicted that clouds of radiation would contaminate crop fields located great distances fromPakistan and India. Horrified by what he saw in theaftermath of an Indian-Pakistani war, Helfand warned, “It is not just the arsenals of the UnitedStates and Russia that pose a threat to the wholeworld. Even these smaller arsenals pose an existential threat to our civilization, if not to ourspecies. It would certainly end modern society aswe know it.”

Iran & Nuclear Weapons: More Zionist Scare Tactics

• Intelligence reports at odds with hype, says peace activist

By Victor Thorn

Is Iran close to getting “the bomb”? With theprospect of WWIII hanging in the balance, thisis quite possibly the biggest political hot-buttonissue today.

During an October 4 interview, AMERICAN FREE PRESS asked this question of Rick Wayman, director of programs and operationsat Santa Barbara, Calif.-based NuclearAge Peace Foundation (NAPF), an organization that works for peace in the era of atomic weapons.

“We’ve been hearing for months and years and a couple of decades now that Iran is on the verge ofdeveloping nuclear weapons,” said Wayman. “But there clearly seems to be no rationale behind thesestatements except to mobilize people for an attack.According to most intelligence reports, they currently don’t have a nuclear weapons program.”

Despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’soverly dramatic September 27 UN “bombspeech” where he claimed Iran was closing in on a90% nuclear redline, best estimates have them currently refining uranium at a 30%grade, with the potential to reach a 60% enrichment grade in the near future.

To laymen, these numbers remain understandablyabstract. However, the latter figure providedabove is vitally important in light of an October 2 pressrelease by Mansour Haqiqatpour, deputy head ofthe Iranian Parliament’s Foreign Policy and NationalSecurity Committee. Haqiqatpour stated that if nuclear talks with the U.S. and other nations arestalled or fail by year’s end, his country wouldforge ahead and enrich uranium up to 60% purity.

Wayman referenced a possible upcoming conferencethat could be pivotal.

“This December there’s supposed to be a meeting in Helsinki where those attending want to establisha nuclear-free zone in the Middle East,” said Wayman. “Arab nations have been pushing thisidea for a long time, but it’s extremely difficult toget Israel and Iran to sit at the same table, especially when Israel is showing so much resistance.It’s our group’s opinion that if you [want to] preventIran from attaining nuclear weapons, then they have to get all Middle Eastern countries to doit, including Israel.”

When questioned specifically about this subject,Wayman responded: “Israel definitely presents adifficult situation. They won’t voluntarily choose to surrender their weapons. So the U.S. has a roleto play in encouraging them and pulling strings tomake them forgo their weapons. It will take a bold step by an American leader.”

Obviously, no president since John F. Kennedy has ever demanded,or even asked, Israel to abandon itsweapons of mass destruction. Both sides of the aislein Congress have been willingly neutered on this issue. Realizing the Jewish lobby’s strength overAmerica’s defanged elected leaders, Israeli envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency EhudAzoulay announced on September 20 that his nationwould not participate in the Helsinki conference.

Assuming a much larger perspective than merely the Mideast, Wayman issued a reminder.

“A lot of people think the possibility of a nuclear exchange ended with the Cold War, but there are stillplenty of issues threatening humanity,” he said. “There is a lack of momentum by those countriesthat still have nukes. They cling to this outdated ideologyof nuclear deterrence being the ultimate safety mechanism. But all it takes is one error, human mistakeor miscommunication. Once nuclear missilesare launched, they can’t be recalled. The entire scenarioseems so highly unnecessary.”

Within the next decade, a Cold War ensued between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, culminatingin what became known as the CubanMissile Crisis. For nearly two weeks in October 1962, the world teetered on what many fearedcould become a nuclear exchange.

With tensions already simmering following the Bay of Pigs disaster, on October 14, 1962 AmericanU-2 recon planes obtained verifiable evidencethat the Soviet military had been building missile bases in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Standingstrong, President John F. Kennedy demandedthat Premier Khrushchev immediately cease any further construction while also removingall existing nuclear weapons.

After Kennedy announced a military blockade to prevent delivery of any further weaponryor materials, Khrushchev finally blinked, agreeingto a UN-brokered deal that prevented adoomsday scenario.

Though much less publicized, in the book Operation Cyanide author Peter Hounam contendedthat after Israel Defense Forces attackedthe USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, intending that Egypt should take the blame,President Lyndon B. Johnson and his 303 Committeedispatched fighter jets armed with nuclear weapons to attack Cairo. Fortunately,Hounam claims that these jets were recalledthree minutes before discharging their nuclear payloads. In response, the Soviets would havetargeted Tel Aviv with nukes.